


En Passant

by Tammany



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1346578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Original fantasy, Original urban fantasy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	En Passant

The house at the end of Angell Street was old, from the height of the Victorian period. It was unapologetically what it was: a house designed for the family of the owner of a shipping line, a captain himself. Its tall tower, topped with a glassed-in widow’s walk, looked out over the Providence River—that broad body of water that seemed more the final safe harbor provided by the Narragansett Bay than a river in its own right. The house was high-priced real estate, in the genteel neighborhoods serving Brown University and housing many of the region’s academics and professionals.

It was known as a quiet house. No late parties. No coming and going, for the most part. No barbecues or clam-bakes in summer, no Christmas parties in winter. Mr. Gregory minded his own business, whatever that business was. The only thing anyone really knew about him was that he’d an eye for fashion and color, manners that were perfectly polite—quite exquisite, actually—but also perfectly executed to maintain his privacy. He was tall, willowy, dressed in business clothing that hovered between conservative and archaic, with ginger hair losing a war with a receding hairline.

Ben Jiverson swore he was gay. “What straight man wears a pocket square? I mean, really!”  Lakshmi Tomlin said it was wishful thinking on Ben’s part. “What gay man smiles at a woman like that?” Father Saletti thought, uneasily, that he might well be clergy: a Jesuit academic, perhaps. He seemed much like a man living under vows. Crazy Su Lin Ang, who sat out on her porch every day of the week, even if it meant wearing her coat and scarf and a woolen hat, said only one thing about him. “Likes animals, that one. Feeders out everywhere. But he’d best do something about the fox that lairs in his basement. Foxes are trouble, they are. Almost as bad as the damned coyotes that’ve been sneaking in on us all. Sly things, all of ‘em. He ought to set a trap.”

 

oOo

Ann-Beth Page walked through RISD’s Gelman Student Exhibitions Gallery as she did every semester, eyes sharp and alert, considering each image, each sculpture, mind probing for strengths and weaknesses. The work in the gallery was superb—as was to be expected of even student work at one of the most prestigious art schools in the country. Ann-Beth was herself an alumna, and she understood the quality of the work better than most.

One of the docents spotted her. “Good to see you, Ms. Page. Great stuff this semester, isn’t it?”

“It always is, Kesha,” Ann-Beth said, and smiled at the girl. “The hard part’s finding anything not to like. Do you have anything up right now?”

The young woman shrugged, and ducked her head. “One. Just a little thing—but my illustration teacher liked it.”

“Can I see it?”

The girl looked up with glowing eyes, and nodded. “Sure, ma’am. Over this way.”

She led Ann-Beth through to a secondary room, and over to one corner. “This. Botanical illustration.”

Her work was a beautiful, controlled image of a tiger lily, in the classic style used for scientific illustration. It was precise, clean work, combining an elegant sense of the flower’s grace with a clear understanding of what a student of botany or gardening might need to know and recognize. The combination was difficult to achieve, and Ann-Beth was happy to praise the illustration. Only when she’d finished giving a fairly complete positive evaluation of the work did she look around to see what else hung near.

“All from the same class?”

“Same subject. Not all the same class. Some of it’s from the continuing ed students.”

“It’s all good, though,” Ann-Beth said. Landscapes, portraiture, nature images—all were likely to attract the kind of work she was really looking for. She strolled along the wall, checking each picture closely.

It was, again, all good work. It wouldn’t be on these walls if it wasn’t. She was relieved, though, as image after image came before her and could be passed without further concern.

Then she found the one…the one she never wanted to find.

She leaned closer, studying it.

It wasn’t the precise, perfect work Kesha had produced, though the artist had a good hand and eye. Ann-Beth glanced quickly at the card identifying the piece and its artist. “Blackthorn and Blacksnake,” by Mike Shanahan.

The name meant nothing. The title meant more, though only the image demanded notice. Even that would have been no more than a nice picture to most viewers. A cluster of white blossoms on dark wood; a dark-haired young man seen in three-quarters profile; a common blacksnake coiling through the composition, tying it all together. It was bold, with strong graphic design elements: solid, jetty black defined the man’s hair, the architectural contours of an ascetic face a goth would fall in love with, the sinuous turns of the snake. The blossom, the skin, the gleam of the scales were picked out in crisp, clean white, all on a background of soft, pensive rose as mysterious as twilight.

“That’s Mike’s work,” Kesha said, as though Ann-Beth couldn’t read the name herself. “Man, he does nice things. No one knows what to do with ‘em, though. He’s caught somewhere between fine arts and illustrative, and he’s not quite either one. Can’t take commissions to save his life.”

“A unique talent?”

“Yeah.”

“A young man?” Let him be young, Ann-Beth thought. Let him be easily led. Let him be…pristine.

“Mike?” Kesha laughed, unaware she was burning Ann-Beth’s hopes to cinders as she did. “Not hardly. Continuing ed. Retired, I think. Nice guy. Shame about his leg.”

Ann-Beth could feel it, now, moving in her. She looked at the picture again, asking, calmly, “What about his leg, Kesha?”

“Hurt it, somehow. Walks with a cane. Pity. He’s a knockout, otherwise. Too old for me, but…” the girl glanced at Ann-Beth. “A lot of women wouldn’t think so, you know?”

Ann-Beth, looking at the picture, saw then the signs of someone who’d seen too much too clearly—though not enough, she thought with a faint touch of relief. There might be time. She might be able to close this one’s eyes, before he saw too much.

She smiled at Kesha, and slipped her phone out of her purse. “He’s good. Very good. If you don’t mind, I think I want to call my partner.”

Kesha’s eyes grew wide. She nodded and stepped back, excitement and envy battling for dominance on her face.

Ann-Beth hit speed dial. When Yuri answered, she said, “Come meet me at the Gelman gallery. Someone’s begun to see…”

oOo

Mike Shanahan had packed his sketches, slung the wide strap of the portfolio over his shoulder, and just started out of the downstairs apartment of the shabby little two-family up-and-down on Wisdom Street as Bren Gregory came loping up the walk. The younger man, not seeing him, squinted in annoyance at a crow perched in the crabapple tree in the front yard. Shanahan saw him scowl, then pick up a pebble and shy it into the gnarled branches, grinning in malicious glee as the midnight bird spiraled up cawing and complaining.

“Rather you didn’t attack the wildlife,” Shanahan said, grimly, as he hobbled cautiously out onto the porch. “What was the poor thing doing to you?”

“Watching,” Bren growled back, hunching his shoulders. He was a tall, sleek, dark thing, hair as jet-black and shiny as the crow’s feathers. Black Irish, Shanahan’s mother would have called him. Black Irish, with blue eyes set in with sooty fingers and skin like milk.

“I daresay all the animals watch us,” Shanahan said, trying to keep his temper with his tenant. “So what? It’s not like they report back, now, is it?”

Bren grinned a toothy grin, false and knowing. “Of course not,” he agreed, in a tone of voice that sounded more like “A lot you know about it, asshole.” The young man considered him, noting his portfolio and his walking stick. “Where are you off to?”

“Studio,” Shanahan said. Not that it was any of the younger man’s business, but Shanahan tried to maintain good relations with the fellow. He was a comparatively quiet tenant, all said and done, and he paid his rent on time. It wasn’t even a particularly low rent, at least not for the neighborhood. It was worth a bit of diplomacy to keep him.

Bren nodded. “Need a hand to the car?”

Shanahan frowned, then grunted agreement, slipping the portfolio from his shoulder and offering it. “Helps. Getting down the stairs is always a challenge.”

Bren shifted up the stair long enough to grab the strap, then backed down to the yard again, waiting as Shanahan gripped his blackthorn walking stick and the bannister rail, using both to steady him as he eased down the few steps from the porch. When Mike was down, Bren paced alongside him to the car. “Trunk or back seat?”

“Back seat.”

“How late are you staying out?”

“Probably ten-ish. We’re doing a mid-semester review. Everything we’ve done for the course so far.”

Bren nodded. Mike had the odd feeling he was relieved. “I won’t expect you sooner, then.”

The man—boy? Mike was never sure where to place him: he seemed too young for his actual age, in far too many ways. In any case, Mike doubted he’d have made much point of expecting Mike no matter what the circumstances. Bren was a private creature. Mike still wasn’t sure he liked the boy. Just when he’d decided to count him on the side of the angels, he did something like chuck a pebble at a crow, or disrespect a neighbor, or insult Mike to his face. There was something fierce and fey and fatal about him that set Mike’s hackles rising.

Still, he was a good tenant. Steady. Quiet. Didn’t bring people home much. Could even be talked into giving a hand around the place, if you caught him in the right mood. And there was a shy, hesitant sweetness under all the Gothy darkness and spoiled-boy attitude. Once, in the high heat of summer, he’d come down in a pair of knit drawstring pajama pants and an oversized T and begged a bowl of ice cream, then joined Mike in front of the TV, shouting gleefully as the two watched _Skyfall_ , and falling asleep in the corner of the sofa. He’d looked like an adolescent cat sprawled on the cushions: skeleton too big for his body, not yet grown into his paws.

Mike remembered training boys like Bren—boys and girls. Most of them were still alive, too. He heard from them, once in a while. His heart always rose when he did: one more day, week, month, year added to a life that he’d touched. Every gain was good.

He slipped into the driver’s seat, carefully adjusting his bad leg, setting the blackthorn stick against the passenger seat with its tip settled in the foot well. He waved as he backed out. Bren waved back, a tall scarecrow clad in coal-black: black jeans, black sweater, no light but that pale, pale face and a pewter knot-work pendant on a black leather cord. The boy’s curly hair fluttered in the fall wind.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Mike called, as he pulled onto the street.

Bren smiled—his usual sly, secretive smile. “Don’t limit my options, Shanahan. There’s hardly anything worth doing that _you’d_ ever do.”

Which was probably as close to a promise as Mike could expect, he thought. But the boy really was a good tenant. He was a good model, too: patient, still, willing to sit for hours as Mike worked. Mike could put up with a lot worse than Bren handed out, for that.

He thought of his latest illustration, tucked into the portfolio in the back. He was pleased with it. Like “Blackthorn and Blacksnake” it had…something. Something special. Something Mike couldn’t always catch when he tried to draw Bren. This time he’d managed it, though, and the illustration seemed to hum with energy, and the dance of light and shadow. For more pictures like that, Mike would even consider dropping the boy’s rent.

It was a fairly short ride across town to class. Mike was still getting used to the difference between DC and Providence. He was used to reserving as much as an hour to get around the capital. Providence he could usually navigate within fifteen minutes. He even got lucky, and found a parking place on Main Street, near the college—never a sure thing in the portion of Providence he thought of as “Student Town.” He pulled himself from the car, grabbed his stick, collected his portfolio, and made his way in to the classroom.

He gave a quick glance around. It looked like most of the class was already there. Young Carlos Deprez was leafing through his portfolio, trying not to show his terror.

Kay Bass had already taken over the display mounts at the front of the room—the clip-hangers on the white board, the easels, and several folding lecterns providing areas for people to show their semester’s work so far. Kay was 62. She would have been graying—if not for the miracle of hair dye and the genius of Ramon over at La Coquette. She was a good old-blood New England woman—Mayflower Society, with claims through multiple lines—but believed herself to be even better, older-blood Olde Englande. “The Plantagenet Line, you know!”

Kay was the kind of person who believed in excellence, with a capital “E.” She knew her own work demonstrated excellence; she knew that many other students’ work did not. As an act of very public _noblesse oblige_ Kay was willing to share “her” classes with the untalented and unskilled—but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t make sure she went first at all times, making escape easier after she’d demonstrated her superiority.

If she hadn’t been so damned good, it would have been easy to just laugh at her. As it was, she was among the finest artists Mike had experienced. She had a supple, seductive way with pastels, and her charcoals struck him dumb every time. Her current works, in the illustration class, weren’t among her best pieces, but that was only because she’d decided to expand her range of media, and she was working in liquid inks. The switch to a wet medium demanding high levels of control, rather than her usually sweeping style of dry media was stretching her skills to the bitter limits. Mike could pick out a good two-thirds of her pieces this semester that were ultimately failures. But how could you condemn someone who failed only because she dared so much?

Kay basically drove Mike crazy. She was a snob, an egotist, often a prig. She was bossy, offensive. She was also talented as hell, with a respect for other talents that could take his breath away. It didn’t hurt, of course, that she considered him a talent. And, damn, when she worked in her own areas of expertise, or hit her stride in a new media, she was good—so very, very good.

The room was arranged carefully for the evening, the long tables set up in a rough U, allowing all the students a view of the display area at the front of the room. Mike, in no hurry to display his own portfolio, tucked it securely between the legs of two adjacent tables, dropped his walking stick across the table to establish the seat was claimed, and moved to the front of the room, ignoring his limp as best he could. He could walk without the stick, after all. It just wasn’t much fun. When he reached the front, he started working his way through Kay’s pictures.

“That one’s a nightmare,” Kay said, as he reached the third. “Absolute rubbish. I couldn’t control the intensity, and the wash ran all over. Horrible.”

“Yeah, but I can see what you were aiming for,” Mike said. “That sort of silver haze on the top of the lake surface first thing in the morning, right? Everything still and simple and just a bit magical.”

She gave him a grateful look. “You do make me feel better, Mr. Shanahan. Such a comfort that I managed to convey intent, at least. Better than I feared, to tell the truth.” She made a face. “It does humble a person to attempt anything new. I might as well be a complete beginner.”

Only Kay, he thought with an internal grin, could say “complete beginner” and make it sound like “mutant pervert serial-killer.”

“Everyone has to start. It’s kind of unavoidable.”

“So is diaper wetting and baby talk,” Kay pronounced, “but intelligent people abandon those practices as quickly as possible.” She sniffed—and, again, Mike knew very few people who actually, really sniffed their disapproval. “It’s like that line in that Fiddler play? You know, the musical. Being a beginner is no great shame—but it’s no great honor, either.”

Mike moved along, stopping in front of one highly stylized, bold piece, quite unlike Kay’s usual sensual, subtle modulations of tone and intensity. “This is really good,” he said. “Not your usual thing, but very good.”

She nodded, stroking aging lips with one perfectly manicured, salmon-varnished fingernail. “It is, isn’t it? I think it’s the best of the lot. That one was so strange, though: like seeing through new eyes, and drawing with new hands.” She gave him a shy look, brown eyes big behind overly fancy glasses frames. “Which sounds quite silly, doesn’t it?”

“No,” he said. “It sounds like learning a new medium ought to be, really.”

She cocked her head, and said, pensively, “I’ll have to think about that.” As crazy as she could make him, Mike knew she would, too. She might not respect all that many people, but she listened to those who did command her respect. Then, setting the thought aside for the time being, she said, “Did you bring anything special tonight?”

“One I think is special. The rest is my usual, I’m afraid. Nothing I hate. But that one…I love that.”

“May I see?”

“I wasn’t going to get it out until my turn for crit.”

“Oh, please. I do love your work,” she said…and the words were all the more tempting because Mike knew they were sincere.

He smiled. “All right. Come on over, and I’ll show you the good one.” He led her back to his claimed seat, and pulled out the portfolio, unsnapping it and flipping through the plastic-encased pages. Reaching his favorite, he flipped the portfolio wide, tucking all the work but the one piece out of sight. “This one.”

Kay crooned with delight. “Oh, dear. You really are a talent, Mr. Shanahan.”

It was a large work, compared to most of Mike’s pieces—approximately two feet by just over three and a quarter, with the long dimension running from top to bottom. Like much of Mike’s work, the composition blended realism and surrealism, all with a bold graphic sense of color and design. The unifying form that tied the work together was a figure drawing of Bren. The figure filled over half the space, asymmetrically, pushing and even exceeding the boundaries of the frame; Bren’s head high in the upper left hand corner, his feet his feet just hovering over the edge of the cropped mat board. He was casually posed, almost cocky: hip-shot, his hands shoved deep in pants pockets. His expression was one of wicked mischief and delight.

 His too-long hair flew wild and curling in a tossing wind. A long, soot-gray coat was tossed carelessly around his shoulders and streamed into the wind in an arc that suggested the spiral of a golden ratio, sweeping from Bren’s shoulders toward the far edge of the drawing, only to twist back on itself. Bren was drawn in black and grey and white, with only his eyes their startling clear blue. The coat was realistically rendered, with a dense, felted texture and supple handling of the shadows.

The background behind Bren was ornate, done in a lapidary style reminiscent of Klimt: metallic gold and copper and jewel tones in patterns like brocade, or ornate tile work.

If that had been all the picture, it would have been striking; however, Mike had accomplished something—by luck, by effort, by surprise—that jumped the illustration to a different level. He’d picked up the ornamented background and carried the style into the drawing of Bren and his blanket, creating the impression of a double exposure, or an illusion projected over the cool realism of the underlying drawing. Intricate gilded filigree traced the inner fold of Bren’s lapel. The black sweater underneath shone with an unexpected ghost of fancy work, faint and haunting. The brocade patterns formed a counter-spiral composition, phantomlike. Where the center of the spiral would logically land was dark, though, almost midnight black.

Balancing it, in the center space defined by the toss of the coat’s skirts, was a blue jay, screaming its way out of the drawing at a canted angle that showed off wing and tail and arc of flight, while still offering the illusion of headlong flight toward the viewer. The bird was a mosaic of blue and white and black, from flashes of near indigo to smoke-grey to a clear, sparkling tone that exactly matched Bren’s laughing, mischievous eyes.

“What a wicked, wicked boy,” Kay said. Being Kay, it was a bit disapproving—but she was definitely struck. “The same model as in ‘Blackthorn and Blacksnake’, isn’t he?”

“Yes. My upstairs tenant.”

“A scamp, if not a scoundrel, from the look of him,” Kay said; but her eyes were drifting hungrily over the drawing as a whole. “Lovely work on the ornamentation—I don’t think I’ve seen that from you before. Lovely…and the illusion of transparency where you use it over the figure drawing is masterly.” She cocked her head, then, and said, softly, “That poor, poor bird. I do hope he makes it out safely, don’t you?”

Mike blinked. “Huh. I didn’t think anyone but me would catch that,” he said. “I don’t even know why he’s there, but once he was all I could think was I hoped he’d be all right in the end.”

Kay quirked a haughty, well-plucked eyebrow. “Don’t be silly. Of course I saw it. I have eyes, don’t I?”

“Not everyone sees,” Mike pointed out, amused.

She sniffed. “Well, obviously. But I’m hardly everyone.” Then her head snapped up, and her eyes narrowed. “Damn.”

That was startling; Kay was not of the type to swear. She was more likely to fall back on an affected “I swan,” than rely on standard curses. Mike followed her gaze.

Jane Carmenelli, the instructor, had come in, accompanied by a stranger. The two women were an illustration of contrasts. Carminelli was short and sturdy, with olive skin, eyes so dark a brown they appeared black, with curly hair she allowed to billow wild. She dressed like what she was—an academic artist. She wore neat chinos, sensible lace-up flat brogues, a vivid sweater with sleeves that could be easily pushed up to her elbows, and a coordinating scarf with a bold print tied as a flamboyant headband. The wide band framed her face, and the fancy knot and trailing ends were like huge tropical flower against her dark hair.

The stranger was tall and fair—platinum haired, blue-eyed, with Nordic features. She was Brunhilda carved in ice. Her clothing echoed that feeling. It was, to Mike’s admittedly uneducated eye, very aggressively fashion-forward. The cut was tailored, showy, offering oddly angled hems and lines that seemed to cling here, only to sweep out there. The colors were pale, and too cold to be what people thought of as “pastel.” There was no hint of summer about her.

“Who’s she?” he asked Kay.

“Gallery owner,” Kay hissed. “Ann-something. Stay away from her. She’s…” she shook her head. “She’s bad.”

“A crook? Cheats her artists?”

“No.” Kay glanced down. “Put this away, now, before she sees it, and get out of here.”

“Huh? It’s crit night.”

“I’ll make your excuses,” Kay said. “Just get out before…damn. Too late.”

The woman was already walking around the perimeter of the room, glancing at open portfolios and individual pieces the class members had out. She leaned here, made a comment there. Jane Carminelli drifted in her wake, clearly pleased her students were getting attention.

“If she’s so bad, why’d Carmie let her in?”

“Not that kind of bad. She…I don’t know. She’s a good owner. Most of her artists do well. But only the…ordinary ones.” Kay growled. “Me, I’m fine with her. I’m good, but I’m not…different. But I swear, she destroyed the most interesting artist I ever knew. I swear it.” Not looking down she flipped Mike’s portfolio shut, and turned to him. “Please, get out. I’ll explain later, and if you think I’ve done wrong, I’ll buy everything you have—all of it—at gallery prices. But please, go.”

Mike met her eyes. She wasn’t an impressive woman, when you stripped away the hair dye and the makeup and the too-coordinated clothing. Her mouth was too wide, her nose too big, her eyes too small, and of an odd, olive brown shade. But in those eyes burned honest concern and fear.

He nodded. He’d learned to trust his contacts in his years of service. Without looking, he grabbed his portfolio and stick, and cut around the far side of the U of tables, avoiding the stranger and heading for the door.

“Mike?” Jane Carminelli called. “Where are you off to? I have someone I really want you to meet.”

“Sick,” He called back, already in the corridor and headed for the exit. He didn’t know why he was suddenly afraid—but he trusted his instincts, and he trusted Kay Bass.

The streets were growing dark, but there was still light enough to see. It was the odd half-light of twilight. The red-brick and white stone of the buildings was muted. Mike clutched his stick tight. He cracked the back door of his car open, tossed in his portfolio, and then quickly climbed in the front, auto-locking the doors as soon as he was in. He pulled out onto the street.

Behind him pigeons seemed to swirl, black silhouettes against a darkening sky.

oOo

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
